Write about the creatures of our own making (technological, environmental, social) that now stalk us back.
The scariest monsters aren’t hiding under the bed. They’re the ones we made ourselves. Write about the monsters of our own making and how they haunt us today, whether that’s AI and tech, climate collapse, loneliness, or something just as insidious. We are not looking for the ghost stories and urban legends you’d tell around […]
October 1, 2025
up to 1,000 words of prose / 2 pages of poetry
$10
Glossy Planet is a lit mag that responds to the world in real time. Every month, we drop a new challenge tied to what’s happening in the headlines, the culture, and the moment. Think: the literary version of a group chat, if your group chat included a bunch of writers trying to make sense of it all.
We want your flash experiments, microessays, poems, weird little lists—anything under 1,000 words that makes us stop and feel something. We’re here for impact and heat, not polish or perfection. If you’re writing in response to the world, not hiding from it, we want to hear from you.
Flash prose, lists, microessays, flash prose, poetry, and other short, genre-defying forms.
Up to 1,000 words for prose and two pages for poetry.
$1,000 for 1st place, $200 for 2nd, and $100 for 3rd.
Each challenge opens on the 1st of the month and closes on the 15th.
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